


let the world come at you love

by AdmirableMonster (Mertiya)



Series: Kanó- and Nelyo and -Káno [5]
Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, Dreams and Nightmares, Helcaraxë, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-10
Updated: 2020-11-10
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:13:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27497758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mertiya/pseuds/AdmirableMonster
Summary: Fingon dreams of the Grinding Ice, but wakes in Himring.
Relationships: Fingon | Findekáno/Maedhros | Maitimo
Series: Kanó- and Nelyo and -Káno [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1995166
Comments: 24
Kudos: 58





	let the world come at you love

**Author's Note:**

> It has come to my attention that there is an insufficient amount of Mae comforting Finno rather than the other way round. Finno's got his trauma too! So here's one of my attempts to address that.
> 
> Title from Not Yet / Love Run by The Amazing Devil

The ice stretched away into the darkness in every direction.Findekáno wanted to cry.He was so cold and so tired and so lost.He didn’t know which way to go.He didn’t feel as if he could take another step.He wanted to lie down and go to sleep, but the wind was so cold that it burned his cheeks and ears and fingers.He hadn’t known it was possible for the opposite of heat to burn so.Worse than a forge burn, because that was quick and painful but this went on and on and there was no way to stop it.

Somewhere, Itarillë was crying.“Help!” called Turno’s voice, and Findekáno knew he had to run.And he tried, he really did, but he could not lift his feet.When he looked down, he saw that they were frozen to the ice, immovable, and he realized with sudden, weary clarity, that he would die here.Abandoned by the person he loved more than anything in the world, trapped in an icy wasteland from which there was no escape.And it did not matter how great that betrayal, he knew he would still die with Russandol’s name on his lips.

_“Finno—wake up—oh, please wake up, please—”_

The ice beneath him cracked, and he fell.The icy water reached up to swallow him whole, and his lungs froze as well as the rest of them—he could not breathe—he could not move—he felt the weight of all of it above him pressing down on him—

And then he was sitting up with a jerk and a gasp and a cry.“Finno—can you hear me?”

Russandol was there.Findekáno didn’t think about how he had come to be here, or why he was still shivering with cold, he simply burrowed into Russo’s arms, trembling and gasping.A nightmare—it had all been a terrible nightmare.Of course.

“Hush,” Russo said.He sounded terrified, as well he might—Findekáno must have been thrashing and screaming or muttering about something incomprehensible, something that made no sense.Russo would never have abandoned him in such a place as—as—

—as the Helcaraxë.Fingon jerked back, and Maedhros held up his left hand and the stump of his right.“You were having a nightmare,” he said, the terror quite gone from his voice and replaced with a kind of hoarse numb blankness.“Shall I leave you, Finno?I am sorry.”

_I am sorry_.Sorry, Fingon knew, for more than waking him.Sorry for not being able to stop his father, for leaving Fingon behind, with a vast, icy gulf between them.Sorry for the nightmares Fingon was having.Sorry that this wasn’t _easy_ between them anymore, that Maedhros himself shied at shadows and was a sharp-edged, sharp-voiced facsimile of Maitimo.Sorry for so, so, so many things—most of them, Fingon admitted, neither of their faults.

“No,” Fingon told him, fiercely.“No, don’t leave me.”He took a shuddering breath and pressed a hand to his sweating forehead.“I don’t want to be alone.”

“I should not have said it so, should I?” Maedhros asked ruefully.“Tell me, Finno—what do you need?I do not wish to guess, for I might guess wrong.”

“I need…” Fingon trailed off, looking about the little bedroom.Himring—he remembered now.He had come to visit Maedhros at Himring, but surely it had not been so cold when he had fallen asleep?He could hear the horrible wailing and shrieking of the wind outside, and through a crack in the curtains he could see the well-known dance of blowing snow.A blizzard had started up—not so surprising, for Himring was far to the North, and it was the end of autumn now, if not winter in truth.No wonder that he had had such dreams.“Hold me, Russo?” he asked waveringly.“I—I was dreaming of the Grinding Ice.The blizzard—I must have heard it in my sleep, and—”He could not look into Russo’s eyes—Russandol, who had suffered more than anyone.Russandol, who would blame himself for this, and Fingon selfishly did not think he could bear to hear Russo’s self-recriminations right now.“I do not like the cold,” he finished, without much emphasis.

But Maedhros did not say how sorry he was, did not ask for anything from Fingon.He simply pulled Fingon’s smaller body close to him, enveloping it in his large warmth.“Of course you do not like the cold,” he said, and one finger very very gently caressed the rounded tip of Fingon’s ear, where the point had been lost to frostbite.

And now it was _Fingon_ who mumbled, “I’m sorry,” because he shouldn’t be asking for comfort like this.He hated it when he got like this, when his brain and body betrayed him, and somehow all the laughter and joy he took from his life vanished, as if it had never been, as if it would never return.He should not be letting Maedhros— _Maedhros_ , of all people—see him breaking down in this way.

“ _Sorry_?” Maedhros echoed, sounding almost affronted.“Because you, my dearest love, who followed me across the Ice and plucked me from the very fastness of Angband—because you need some small comfort from the nightmares that assail you?”He settled around Fingon like a large cloak.“Please don’t be sorry,” he said in a much smaller voice.“Let me comfort thee, as thou hast comforted me so many times before.”

“But thou—” he broke off, not wanting to remind Maedhros of thoughts better left untouched.

“Hush.”Maedhros kissed the top of his head.“Hush, love.Let me hold thee.”

Fingon stopped trying to fight him.He could not deny how much he wanted this, in any case; how much he wanted to be held and cared for in strong, warm arms, until the chilly claws of the Helcaraxë had released their grip, and he could feel joy again.Until he could feel like himself again.He curled up in Russandol’s arms with tears trickling down his cheeks, and Russo held him tightly, rubbing soothing circles across his back and murmuring, _It will be all right, my love_ , over and over again. _It will be all right_.

It wasn’t all right.The cold inside him had flared up again, and he was afraid, desperately afraid, not even certain what it was that he feared as he clung to his love.But this time, the cold might be inside and the cold might be outside, but Russo was there, was holding him, was keeping him safe.He didn’t have to be strong any longer.

He didn’t have to be strong any longer.And no matter where the ice was, inside or outside, it would always melt; the day would always dawn; his Russo would always come back to him and keep him safe.


End file.
